Prayers from God

By Edward Woodville Dorrell Jr.

Prayers from God ups the ante on how to pray out loud at church. A methodology is described whereby you can pray prayers that not only glorify God and edify the church but change lives and change the church. The book includes two hundred prayers that have been prayed out loud as part of the life of one evangelical church by one layman in worship services, prayer meetings, etc. over a period of twenty years. What makes these prayers unique is the authors justification for calling them Prayers from God. These prayers display a passion and a concern for the lost youll find nowhere else and give a glimpse into the life of evangelical church life. Youll not find prayers that cause controversy and make people uncomfortable in most books of prayers, but you will here. You cant just read these prayers; you pray these prayers as you read them

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490819587

Edward Woodville Dorrell Jr.

Woody has a passion for prayer. He is a layperson who is a deacon and youth Sunday school teacher. For a number of years, he led the Monday night prayer meeting at his church Woody is a walking miracle. It’s been almost five years since he was diagnosed with fourth-stage melanoma. He is retired, and likes to garden, read, and walk. He and his wife live next door to his son and daughter-in-law and their brood (six with one on the way). You can get a blessing by checking out his son’s website: www.crazytieguy.com. Woody also has a daughter, son-in-law, and two other grandchildren who live an hour away. Woody has lived in southern middle Tennessee for over forty years—Tullahoma, to be exact.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 Edward Woodville Dorrell, Jr..

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Australian Casey Stoner of Ducati Marlboro at 2007 Polini Malaysia Motorcycle Grand Prix

©Ahmad Faizel Yahya ! Dreamstime.com

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1957-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-1958-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013922626

WestBow Press rev. date: 09/15/2014

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Prayers From God

Prayer

Why I Believe In Prayer

Cognitive Dissonance

Bibliography

Endnotes

Amp = Amplified

Scripture quotations marked (Amp) are from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

ESV = English Standard Version

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved

KJV = King James Version

The Holy Bible, King James Version. New York: Broadman and Holman Publishers: 1994.

NASB = New American Standard Bible

Scripture quotations marked (NASB) are from the NEW AMERICAN

STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,

1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

NIV = New International Version

Scriptures quotations marked (NIV) are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.www.zondervan.com.

The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

The technique used, praying God’s Word back to him, means starting with God’s Word and then modifying it as need be by modifying it slightly to fit in the flow of words or by turning it into a request, thanks, or praise or to express the content of the words in a different way. So, if the Scripture is not noted as one of the above, a reference may be supplied, but the Scripture is not necessarily identical to what is found in a particular version of the Bible. Most of the Scriptures used started out as NIV, KJV, or Amplified and were then modified.

Excerpt(s) from Prayer, the Great Adventure by Dr. David Jeremiah, copyright © 1997 by David Jeremiah. Used by permission of WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Excerpt(s) from each of the following are used by permission and all rights are reserved:

The Baptist Faith and Message, A Statement Adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention, The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, copyright © 1963, Lifeway. Nashville, Tennessee.

Baptist Hymnal © 1991, Convention Press. Nashville, Tennessee.

Experiencing God, Henry T. Blackaby, & Claude V. King, copyright © 1990, Sunday School Board of The Southern Baptist Convention. Nashville, Tennessee.

A Pilgrim’s Guide to Prayer, copyright © 1987, Broadman Press. Nashville, Tennessee.

The Praying Life, Jennifer Kennedy Dean, copyright © 1993, New Hope. Birmingham, Alabama.

The Glorious Dawn of God’s Story, Anne Graham Lotz, copyright © 2002, Thomas Nelson. Nashville, Tennessee.

A Love Worth Giving:, Max Lucado, copyright © 2002, Thomas Nelson. Nashville, Tennessee.

Praying: Asking and Receiving, John R. Rice, copyright © 1942, Sword of the Lord Publishers. Murfeesboro, Tennessee.

The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: 1 Peter, John MacArthur, copyright © 2004, Moody Publishers. Chicago, Illinois.

God is Closer Than You Think, John Ortberg, copyright © 2005, Zondervan. Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Faith and Doubt, John Ortberg, copyright © 2008, Zondervan. Grand Rapids, Michigan.

A Hunger for God, John A. Piper, copyright © 1997, Crossway Books. Wheaton, Illinois.

Prayer: Life’s Limitless Reach, Jack R. Taylor, copyright © 1977, Broadman Press. Nashville, Tennessee.

The Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren, copyright © 1995, Zondervan. Grand Rapids, Michigan.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost I’d like to give all the praise and all the credit that comes my way to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and to the work of the Holy Spirit in my life and in the production of these prayers. How can I possibly deserve any credit for praying God’s Word back to Him? He’s the original author and is responsible for inspiring me to repeat it back to Him.

Secondly, I’d like to give credit to my daughter-in-love, Kathleen Robin Daust Dorrell, who typed the major part of this manuscript while handling six young’uns eleven and under with another one on the way. And I’d like to credit my wife, Lois Melita Gilmore Dorrell, who has put up with me through this process which has lasted for almost twenty years, encouraged me, acted as my sounding board, and performed a superior job of proofreading.

Then, too, I’d like to thank the congregation and leadership of First Baptist Church, Tullahoma (TN), for providing an environment that spawned these prayers and allowed them to be prayed out loud in their presence and for their encouragement and support along the way.

INTRODUCTION

About twenty years or so ago, I picked up a book entitled Prayer: Life’s Limitless Reach by Jack Taylor in the church library. One statement Taylor made really got my attention: I recommend continuous reading on the subject of prayer, biographies of great men of prayer, and repeated reading of certain prayer classics…¹ Well, I definitely wanted to make a big improvement in my prayer life. You see, I wasn’t an Ivah Bates whom Blackaby refers to as a knee in the body of Christ because she was such a great prayer warrior.² I was and probably still am a nerve. Now nerves are important, mind you, because they warn the body about what’s wrong. But nerves typically get blamed for the pain even though they are ultimately saving the body if it pays attention to the pain. And I was tired of taking all the flak. I’d much rather pray, watch what I prayed for happen, then just sit back and smile, knowing I had a big part in bringing it about. Taylor also provided his list of the top twenty books about prayer ever written. So I decided I’d do it. And to God be the glory, I’ve been reading books on prayer ever since.

Now one of the comments in one of those books that really got to me concerned public prayer: …leaving everything to spontaneity can lead to more vain repetitions than anything else! When you give your prayers no prior thought at all, you tend to say the same things over and over. You fall back on your store of previous thoughts and language. Phrases roll right off the tongue, but they’re the same ones you used last week… You’re acting much like a machine. The tape has been loaded, the ‘play’ button pressed, the volume adjusted, and now we can sit back and listen. In private prayer that is one thing, but in public prayer it surely falls short of being edifying to fellow believers over the long haul. They’ve heard it all before. The ones with good memories know what you’re about to say before you say it! I’m arguing for giving conscious thought to prayer, and writing is one of the best ways to do that.³ Other writers also indicated that most public prayers could be followed by phrases like ‘portions of this prayer have been mechanically reproduced.’ because they’re using the same phrases we’ve used before.

I was called on to pray at church fairly often and felt intimidated when I was. And I felt that I usually did a less than adequate job. So, in order to do a much better job at praying in public at church, I took it that I needed to write prayers ahead of time—or at least prepare ahead of time. However, Matt 6:5 (Amp) says, …when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and the corners of the street, that they may be seen by people. There was a trade-off. Was I going to do a good job of edifying the church and glorifying God through my public prayers and cause some folk to think I’m trying to appear more spiritual than they or was I going to continue to say ho-hum prayers that neither glorify God nor edify the church?

So I decided if I was going to be serious about prayer it included being serious about prayers I prayed out loud in church. Just one problem—I didn’t know what or how to pray. So I prayed about it. I asked God to tell me what to pray. I started with a clean slate and waited for the Lord to show me what to pray. The wait was sometimes months from one phrase to the next. Then I picked up a book that had a chapter on how to pray God’s Word back to God. And I began using some of those techniques. My current technique is to read a Bible commentary that goes verse by verse and let the Lord focus my attention on what he wants me to pray. For example: from 2 Thes. 3:1b (Amp) I pray May Your Word spread quickly, run its course, be glorified and triumphant. When you read the entire verse, you notice the first part says we are to pray those words. Once the Lord focuses my attention on a verse and lets me know that this is something I can pray back to Him, I use The Bible from 26 Translations⁴ to help me find the best translation or combination of translations to use. Another example is the end of Psalms 85:10 (Amp) …righteousness and peace have kissed each other. If the words God has me focusing on don’t pray directly back to Him, then I look for how to turn them into a request, thanks, or praise or to express the content of the words in a different way. This verse turned into Help us find peace by making war on the sins in our lives. Sometimes it isn’t a verse or a part of a verse that God causes me to focus on, but a concept. For example, the concept found in Luke 11:5-8 justifies praying for lost people I know. Another example is that reading selections of God’s Word (Luke 19:10 & Gen. 3:8-10) caused me to be focused on the idea that God pursues each of us vigorously turns into Hound of Heaven, we praise You because when it came time to pursue us You didn’t leave the big dog on the porch. I attempt to use the ACTS (adoration-confession-thanksgiving-supplication) method of praying, remembering that the most important part of any prayer is the adoration, but certainly don’t follow it strictly.

So over a period of almost twenty years I have allowed the Lord to lead me to prepare prayers ahead of time to be used in church. I don’t like to say I write these prayers because I strongly believe the Holy Spirit leads me to pray what He wants prayed. One reason I believe this is true is that while I usually only have one prayer memorized when I am called on to pray, more often than not it seems to fit the occasion very well. Also, I have started each prayer by asking God to tell me what I need to pray. So while I’ve put these words on paper, memorized them, and prayed them aloud in church, I don’t want to take any credit for what is written or for what effects these prayers create. Rather, I pray that all the credit and all the glory goes to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and to the work of the Holy Spirit, and, of course, ultimately to Jehovah Himself. I really consider Him the instigator and author of these prayers. And I purposely say, To God be the glory. anytime anyone tries to give me any credit for one of these prayers. The intent of each prayer, even those that confess the sins of the church, is to glorify God and edify the church.⁵ Of course, if there is any inaccuracy or anything that’s not quite right, whether through carelessness or ignorance or if any of my personal prejudices sneak through, I accept all the blame.

There are two reasons why I call these ‘Prayers from God.’ First, much of most of these prayers is merely praying God’s Word back to Him. Each prayer began with a clean slate and me asking God what I should pray. Each prayer is the result of prayer and Bible study and meditation and my desire to pray God’s Word back to Him and to pray what God wants prayed. If I pray God’s Word directly back to Him, which is often the case, then those words come from God word for word from the Bible. If I take God’s Word and modify it so that it becomes a request, thanks, or a praise, then most of the words and ideas still come directly from God’s Word. When I was a teenager I was confused by people who claimed to hear the still, small voice (See 1 Kings 19:12 Amp) of God. I thought they heard audible voices, but I never heard any. I have only encountered one person who told me that he heard audible voices not attributable to some human source and I believed him. It was a sixth-grade boy who said the voices were telling him to commit suicide. That obviously was Satan talking. So I am very skeptical whenever I hear anyone say that they hear God talking to them audibly. I certainly don’t make that claim about these prayers; I still have never heard an audible voice that I could attribute to God. Currently this is how I understand God usually communicates to me: I have thoughts. These thoughts come from one of three sources: Satan, myself, or God. It’s my job to figure out which thought comes from which source. I attribute to God those thoughts that agree with God’s Word or are in accord with His nature and His will. I attribute those thoughts that are evil to come from Satan. The rest I attribute to myself. So, secondly, each one of these prayers is the product of only thoughts that I have identified that came from God according to the method and criteria I just described.

Each of these prayers has been prayed out loud at First Baptist Church, Tullahoma, Tennessee, a Southern Baptist Church where I am a Deacon and youth Sunday School teacher. Almost all of these prayers were prayed as part of one of the following events: Monday Night Prayer Meeting, Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting, 8:30 Sunday Morning Worship Service, 11 O’clock Sunday Morning Worship Service, Sunday Evening Worship Service, a Pre-Service Deacon-Pastor Prayer Time, or some other church event. Offertory prayers were prayed mid service before the preaching or at the end of the service right before the offering, announcements, and dismissal.

PRAYERS FROM GOD

I call this the Motorcycle Prayer. It was prayed during a Monday Night Prayer Meeting. This prayer was an attempt to pray Ye have not because ye ask not. James 4:2 (KJV) back to the Lord. Sometimes God helps us to see what we need to pray through our life experiences.

Lord God Almighty,

I finally got around to checking out the new guy in the office’s motorcycle the other day. It was really snazzy. But what really intrigued me was the speedometer—it went all the way to 180mph. There were seven other bikes parked there. The Moto Guzz had a 140mph limit; the Harleys all had 120; and the Honda 750 and the Kamasaki had 80mph limits. When I got back to the office, I asked Eric about it. He said, And you better believe me, it’ll do every bit of it. In the back of my mind I said to myself Eric has ridden this thing at more than 180mph around here somewhere. So I pressed for more info. It was obvious that that bike was Eric’s pride and joy. He couldn’t stop telling me more and more details about it. He said his bike is a Ducati—that there are about two of those sold in Tennessee per year. A Ducati is the ultimate in motorcycles—kind of like a Ferrari car, and it’s really a racing bike. In fact, he told me he paid about $20K for it but if he’d gotten all the racing options and add-ons it would have been close to $250,000. I kept asking how he resisted the temptation to break the speed limit around here when he had a bike that would go 180mph. He finally confided in me that every day that he rides it to work, on the way home he gets it up to 140mph on Fredonia Road over in Manchester.

O Lord, we confess that in You we have the Ducati of gods—the one that is the snazziest and comes with all the options and all the add-ons and all that power and all that speed, the one we could win every race with; but, Lord, we’re not soaring on wings like eagles, we’re not enjoying You the way Eric enjoys his Ducati. We’re just putting along at what we consider a safe speed when we need to throw caution to the wind and let it all out—turn everything over to You, become completely dependent on You, follow Your every leading and let You take us wherever You want, and just enjoy the ride.

O Lord, we confess that with all that power and cattle on a thousand hills that You want us to ask for big things because You want to do great things for us and through us, yet we’re too scared to ask for big things that would really glorify You. O Lord, help us to ask for the big things You want us to have.

O Lord, we confess that we’re not just bubbling over ready to just tell all kinds of information about You like Eric is about his bike. O Lord, help us to make You our pride and joy.

Lord, Eric tells me that once he gets on, gets up some speed, squeezes in his knees, and tucks down that he almost feels like he’s one with his Ducati. O Lord, help us to get close to You, to have such a grip on You that we’re really one with You.

O Lord, may we not be able to resist the temptation to try out all Your power and all Your promises. And may You get all the glory.

Amen

Note: Eric didn’t ride his bike to work when there was a threat of rain.

1.jpg

This prayer was prayed at Monday Night Prayer Meeting prior to a visit I was supposed to have with Charles.

O Lord Who Likes to Be Pestered,

We praise You because You are a god who (Repeat this with each indented phrase below or not.)

Loves sinners,

Agonizes over the lost,

Sent Jesus to die for the lost,

Uses Your children to reach the lost.

Lord, over in Luke 11 You taught Your disciples how to pray. Lord, I consider that model prayer kindergarten praying since all the petitions are for the pray-er and because even a kindergartener can memorize that prayer and repeat it word for word without actually meaning it. Lord, help us to pray in the spirit of that prayer, actually meaning it. Another reason I call it kindergarten praying is that it asks for forgiveness of sins without accompanying it with any confession and repentance, and while there are some sins, like the sins of omission, that we don’t always recognize, every growing Christian should confess every sin as soon as he recognizes it and ask for forgiveness and repent of it; and, for too many people, the Model Prayer is a cop out. This prayer, or one very similar to it, is the only prayer they pray asking for forgiveness; and the confession of individual sins doesn’t happen, the asking for forgiveness of individual sins doesn’t happen, and the repentance doesn’t happen. Hence there is no Christian growth and the Christian stays in kindergarten. And the Christian goes his whole life and never gets promoted. Help us to keep our account with You very short.

But Lord there is one big difference at the end of this Model Prayer and the one in Matthew. There is no ‘amen.’ This seems to indicate that You weren’t through teaching the disciples how to pray yet. And indeed, you next move on to what I call college-level praying: praying for others. You talk about a man who has two friends, one who has bread and one who does not. Lord, by Your divine revelation, You have caused me to understand that You’re not referring to the kind of bread one can buy in a grocery store, but You are talking about the Bread of Life that you have baked especially for sinners.

Guess what, Lord. I have two friends. And one of them is You; and You have a whole bakery full of that special bread. And I have another friend by the name of Charles who desperately needs a loaf of that bread. But Your Word indicates I won’t get the bread for him by just asking once. Indeed, as we read on we are introduced to the concept of importunity, for which I substitute the word ‘pestering.’ Because of my pestering You over and over again, You’ll finally give me the Bread of Life to take to him.

Lord, I beg of You, I plead with You. I have a friend who is on the journey of life. I have an encounter with him scheduled this week. And I have nothing to set before him. O Lord, give me a loaf of Your bread to take to him. O Lord, it’s close to midnight in his life; and he is hungry.

Lord, in my humanness, I keep coming up with things I might convey to him that might influence him to come to faith. But, Lord, may I say nothing that comes from me. Lord, I have nothing. I don’t have the power of the Holy Spirit; I don’t have Holy Boldness; I don’t have the burning words. O Lord, give me the power and the wisdom to enable me to do what otherwise I cannot do. Lord, give me the power to carry that loaf of bread to him; give me the wisdom to see which direction to go; give me the words that are needed, give me the leadership to convince and sway a man who has been saying no to You for over sixty years. O Lord, You have an abundance of bread; give some for this poor sinner named Charles. O Lord I’m standing between You and Charles; use me as a willing channel to carry Your bread to him.

O Lord, I’m asking You this because I think it’s time. I’ve been pestering You about Charles for at least ten years. And You’ve now moved me on to the graduate-level praying for him. This is where You wanted to get me all along. You have moved me from just praying for him to be saved to praying for him again and again and again to the point where I have so much love for him I can hardly sit still. And Lord, You know as I beg You again and again and again to save Charles, I often cry and cry and cry and I have to stop praying so I can blow my nose. And then I pray for him again and again and again and I cry and cry and cry and have to stop praying so I can blow my nose. And there are times when I experience great heaviness and extreme agony and a great yearning that Charles submit to Your Holy Spirit that just gets stronger and stronger so much so that I am in pure agony. I have to stop praying; and when I do I find I’m out of breath and I check my forehead to see if I’m perhaps sweating blood.

Lord, I doubt if Charles knows I’ve been praying for him. But I’m sure he knows that his wife and son and others of his family have been praying for him. O Lord, would You honor their prayers along with mine? Would You prepare his heart and bring salvation to Charles this very week?

Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please with sugar on it.

And may You get all the glory and all the credit; and may I get none. And please, in the spirit of that Model Prayer, forgive me of every sin—especially pride and saying things that were better left unsaid so that unforgiven sin won’t be a hindrance as I communicate with him. And Lord, if there is anyone I need to forgive or apologize to let me know right now so I can do that so those issues won’t be a hindrance either.

May there be rejoicing in Heaven very, very soon.

Amen

Note: The idea of different levels of praying and that the interpretation of these verses primarily has to do with asking for salvation for a friend all came from John Rice’s book Prayer: Asking and Receiving pages 79-85. Of interest is the fact that I have checked over two hundred fifty commentaries on and interpretations of these verses, both on line and in hardcopy, and I’ve not found a one that agrees with John Rice.

Note: Charles’ wife called saying Charles changed his mind about that appointment. I’m still praying for Charles.

1.jpg

This prayer was the offertory prayer delivered near the end of at an 8:30 Sunday Morning Worship Service.

Precious Jesus,

You are our Shepherd. We are Your sheep. (See John 10:11)

May we not wander away,

But listen intently for and closely to Your voice;

And obey Your every command.

You are our Potter. We are Your clay. (See Isa. 64:8)

May we not resist Your shaping and become unmalleable,

But accept Your reproof with joy;

And conform to Your every squeeze.

You are our Vine. We are Your branches. (See John 15:5)

May we not become separated or shrivel up,

But cling to You and be pruned by You

And bear much fruit.

You are our Light. We are Your followers. (See John 1:7-9)

May we not walk in darkness,

But follow Your every guidance

And grow in love.

You are the Light of the World. We are Your reflectors. (See John 8:12)

May we not become dull or scratched,

But may our countenance and actions show Your glory

Just as Moses’ did when he came down from the Mount Sinai. (See Ex. 34:29-30)

We’ve come to a time in this service set aside for rendering. When You were asked whether it was right to pay taxes to that despot Caesar, You asked whose image and whose inscription are on the coin. Then You said, Render…unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s. (See Matt. 22:21 KJV) Lord, the only things I know that have Your image on them are human beings; and sure enough, some of the human beings right here in this room also have Your name, Jesus Christ, inscribed in their hearts.

Lord, You are our Master. We are Your slaves. (See John 13:13-14)

May we not hold anything back,

But render unto You everything—

Body, mind, soul, heart, and will.

You are the Bread of Life. We are Your servers. (See John 6:35)

May none here go home hungry today.

And may we serve a loaf of that bread to a lost friend this week.

Amen

1.jpg

Inspired by Psalm 100:3. This was prayed at a Monday Night Prayer Meeting.

Heavenly Potter and Shepherd,

You are our Potter; we are Your clay.

You provided the stuff from which we were made.

You provided the spark and breath of life that started us up and keeps us going.

You continually try to mold us into what we need to be.

It is You who made us and not we ourselves. (See Ps. 100:3)

You are our Shepherd; we are Your sheep.

You have redeemed us and brought us into Your fold.

We are Your people, the sheep of Your pasture. (See Ps. 100:3)

You guide us, protect us, and watch over us.

We praise You because You are a god who never throws out His clay or abandons His sheep.

We have neither created ourselves nor made ourselves into what we are. We are what we are by the Grace of God. What we are is not cause to have pride in ourselves but is cause to praise You.

And we owe You big time.

We owe You (Repeat this with each indented phrase below or not.)

Total obedience and submission,

The sacrifice of praise,

Love with all our heart, soul, and might,

A walk with You in which we confess and repent of every sin in short order,

A life in which others see Jesus,

A deliberate effort to spread Your Gospel far and wide,

Enough love for the people that we encounter that we tell them about Jesus, and

Concern for the poor and needy and hurting.

But, Lord, too often our sins control us. They keep us from doing what we ought. We are blind to our pride, our arrogance, and our cognitive dissonance⁶, while others see these in us right off. When it comes time to confess, we deny we have sinned or say we can’t remember, reinforcing our arrogance.

And, Lord, we rely on everything but You. We rely on the grocery store or the fast food place for food. We rely on our PC, laptop, I-pad, or cell phone for information to keep us straight and for social networking. We rely on our GPS for directions. We rely on the TV to determine our understanding of the world. We rely on Social Security, our 401(k), and our pension plan to provide for our future. Yet You are the one who ultimately provides our food, sets us straight, gives us the right directions; You are the one who should help us understand the world. You are the One to whom we need to be talking; and You are the One who is really providing for our future.

O Lord, some of us don’t really know You because we never spend time with You. We say we pray, but we don’t ever set aside even one hour a week to do it. Help us to commit to having a regular quiet time with You and follow through.

O Lord, may we follow hard after You. May our thirst and hunger for You be satisfied only to be replaced with an even deeper thirst and hunger for You. And may we be putty in Your hands and sheep that follow Your every command.

Amen

1.jpg

Monday Night Prayer Meeting was initiated by several church members to pray for the church and for the search for a new pastor. The nice thing about Monday Night Prayer Meeting is that one has the latitude to pray whatever the Lord has put on his heart.

O Lord Who God-breathed the Words of All Scripture,

Help each of us to constantly recognize that we’re helpless to help ourself.

Let us be begging on the inside for Your control of our life.

Help us to think only of You and Your glory.

Let us be so consumed with Christ’s glory that we lose ourselves in Your work.

Help us to be ultra-sensitive to sin in our life.

Let it be the sore point of our existence.

Let our sins burden us way beyond the point of tears.

Help us to deny our own desires.

Help us to not only deny, but put aside our own needs to think only of Your needs.

Help each of us to humble ourself before You and others, Lord.

Help us to hunger and thirst after Your righteousness.

May your Word be the joy of our life.

Help each of us to constantly pursue sanctification in our life.

Help us to be merciful to the hurting.

Help us to be merciful to the ones that are ill physically.

Help us to be merciful to the ones that are ill spiritually.

Lord, watch over our mind, our attitude, our inner being.

Lord, cleanse us from all sin.

Lord, let us be peacemakers by being confrontational with Your Good News when and where Your Spirit leads.

Lord, let us be persecuted for Your sake.

Lord, there is an old prayer that goes something like: Help us to resist the temptation to be so heavenly-minded that we are of no earthly good and help us to resist the temptation to be so earthly-minded that we are of no heavenly good. Lord forgive us for even considering that we might need to pray that first part, but, Lord, please accept the second part as our honest need.

We praise You once again because Your word became flesh and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth. (See John 1:14)

Please, Lord, because we mean it so much.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

1.jpg

This was used as an offertory prayer in an 11 O’clock Sunday Morning Worship Service.

Lord God Almighty,

You scare us to death sometimes.

Your thunder booms directly overhead and we quiver in our boots.

Your fierce storms approach and we run for cover.

But when we consider that these events are completely insignificant when compared to solar storms or the big bang we think occurred when You said, Let there be light, we’re so in awe of You